whatever

if you are going to united states for business meeting or may be visiting your favourite stunts in universal studio but you are from third world country, not a u.s. citizen or not a greencard holder then you need non-immigrant visa for temporary visit, normally, b1/b2 visa.
this is my experience in applying b1/b2 visa from u.s. embassy in jakarta. back then, before the ninetees, b1/b2 visa was only a two-color ink stamp on your passport. i have that one.
i don’t know what year exactly they changed but when i applied my h1b visa in the mid-ninetees i got printed visa glued to my passport.

these days it has new design.
for some reason, my memory doesn’t serve me well. i don’t remember how did i apply my previous visas. the only thing i remember is that i went to the same place near gambir station in jakarta. of course the procedures are different now. what i have here is what i did on october 2006. it is not the greatest how-to, and it is not a cheat sheet.

first, you have to email u.s. embassy in jakarta for appointment. your email explains your purpose and date of visiting u.s., don’t forget to mention your name, your passport number and expiry date. send it, oh sorry, the email address is JakVisa1@state.gov. keep your eye on your inbox for a day or two. the replied email from embassy tells you the procedures step by step, interview time, what to prepare and what items to bring with you.
basically you have to bring:

• your valid passport,
• application fee (rp 900 000),
• hard copy, completely filled out of electronic application form, ds-156
  and ds-157 for male aged 16-45. you must apply on-line from
  http://jakarta.usembassy.gov/consular/GENFORMS.html
• photograph, 5cm x 5cm,
• proof of identity,
• all other supporting documents you can bring: invitation letter,sponsor
  letter, old passport, previous u.s. visa, or anything about america that will help you.

now, you are set, ready for interview.
note on the photograph. the size is uncommon, at least for indonesian, so if you creative enough and have the resources you can improvise from the almost fit picture you have. my suggestion is, like what i did, in the evening before interview go to globe photo in jalan sabang. just mention "foto visa amerika" and they know what todo. it costs you rp 35 000, and 30 minutes waiting time.

for those who don’t know, i’d like to share with you the atmosphere of the embassy while i was there. here’s my chronological experience:
06:28 arrived in front of embassy, my appointment was 07:00 but about 50 people already in the line, i walked to the end of line, but still more people coming behind me, made the line longer.
07:23 two ladies from embassy did a quick document check on each person in the line to see if they apply using electronic form. those who didn’t applied on-line were suggested to go to "warnet".
07:31 moved to next queue line, six person at a time. standing next to the wall at right side of the gate. direct sunshine and no shades, arghhh… jakarta is hot, now’s getting hotter.
07:34 security check, one guard swiped our belonging with wet cotton. don’t ask me what was that. then i had to show my passport and the forms to another security guard.
07:39 entered the gate and one young officer came to make sure that we filled "n/a" in the blank answers, filled the ktp number correctly or kitas number for foreigner who live in indonesia, also checked if the size of photo is correct. i overheard that one japanese guy behind me was told to go to one photo center in jalan sabang because his photograph has not the exact size. wow! after that i went to cashier window and paid rp 900 000, yes, rupiah bill, the cashier doesn’t accept us$.
07:48 at "loket 1" window a local lady collected my forms and passport and in return she gave me a yellow post-it with a group number writen on it (mine is 10). then i sat on the bench in front of security/scanning room.
08:02 in the security/scanning room, had to leave unnecessary belongings during interview, like cellphones, i-pods, camera etc. the security asked for id (ktp or sim), listed all the stuffs (i only had a cellphone) and gave me tag.
08:07 went in to interview room. this room is air-conditioned and there are some rows of chairs, but all seats were taken so i stood up waiting for next turn.
08:46 finger printing, from the loudspeaker said "group 10 on window 12". there, scanned index fingers only, left and then right. after that i saw empty chair, i sat down on that chair, and wait again.
09:12 interviewed, my group (number 10) was called to approach window #11. a white lady interviewed me. it depends on the person who is doing this, it could be a rigid conversations, or you might have one with jokes and a lot of smile, but basically the questions are: reason of visiting, how long, then cross checked information on the forms and any supporting documents you have. somehow it looks like they want to make sure that after visiting u.s. you are going back to your country, make sure that you don’t have intention to stay as illegal immigrant, make sure that you are not looking for job, etc.
09:23 "ok, your application is approved and you can come back on monday", she said to me. which means my visa is ready in four working days from that day. cool.
i went out from the interview room, walked to security window, the small window on the left side after exit turnstyle. there, i turned in my tag and had my cellphone back.

done!

so, are you going to apply?
good luck.

one of my passion in photography is making panorama pictures. you know, the picture that shows wide angle view or even virtually captures surround view. unfortunately, i’m not taking that seriously. what is this? you ask. passion but not serious. ok, so it’s not passion then? whatever… anyway, i want to make panorama pictures. a great one, someday. but because the lack of seriousness, i never prepare a nice plan before creating a panorama picture. the idea always pops in my head on the spot.

one day i was standing on the top level of a tower. it’s a viewing area and i saw surrounding view was dull. but then i came up with the idea of collecting snaps of all horizontal view from where i stood, full circle, 360 degree, and wished to have a virtual view from that tower. well, it’s not that easy boyo! it’s not like taking one snap then rotate your view and take another snap kind of thing. because the center of that place is an elevator. i have to take all my pictures from the windows which are located about 3 meters away from the center, which gives me inconsistent perspective in each of my snaps. not to mention the crowd, i have to wait for people at the window to move or take from a different position from the window.

the other day i was in the middle of city lights. when my panoramic idea came up, i faced another problem: i didn’t have tripod. great. it was holding my breath photo session.

another day another problem. that’s life.

after taking series of snaps i have to stitch them together to create one big picture with continuous view. i do this process digitally because it is easy to manipulate than do the same thing on the printed material. um, how do you skew your photo print? my favorite tools are the gimp and panorama tools. you can use any photo stitching software you like. doing this part is time consuming, well, at least for me. may be you have better tools that stitch pictures in a single click. that would be great. anyway, now i have panorama pictures available. i know the pictures are far from good. did i say i’m not serious? hehehe… but i’ll keep on trying. click here to see them.

ok, now i have my photos uploaded.
they are some of my snaps i took when i went to tanjung bira (cape of bira) last year. not much, but, two albums is a good start.

yeah, i admit it. no pictures uploaded yet.
i guess i’m a lazy bastard, hehehe…

i had to wrote this crapola.
oh well…